The Week in Math: November

Here are the highlights from the historical world of mathematics for the month of November.  While this list is not meant to be all-encompassing, I have tried to pick out those things that I find most interesting.

November 2:

Birthdays: George Boole (1815-1864)

Deaths: Abram Samoilovitch Besicovitch (1891-1970)

November 3:

Math News: In 1832, Janos Bolyai writes to his father Farkas,very elegantly describing his work on non-Euclidean geometry– “From nothing I have created another entirely new world.”  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: Carl B. Boyer (1906-1976), Wilhelm Kutta (1867-1944)

November 4:

Birthdays: Johann(III) Bernoulli (1744-1807)

November 5:

Math News: In 1666, a 20-year-old Leibniz receives his doctorate in law.  (See MathDL for details.)

Deaths: Scipione del Ferro (1465-1526), James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)

November 7:

Deaths: Artemas Martin (1835-1918)

November 8:

Math News: In 1824, Gauss coins the term “non-Euclidean” geometry in a letter to Taurinus.

Birthdays: William Edge (1904-1997), Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), Edmond Halley (1656-1742), Felix Hausdorff (1868-1942), Moritz Pasch (1843-1930)

Deaths: George Peacock (1791-1858), Michel Rolle (1652-1719)

November 9:

Birthdays: Hermann Weyl (1885-1955)

November 10:

Math News: In 1619, Descartes has his famous dream that leads him to the discovery of Analytic Geometry.  (See MathDL for details.)

November 11:

Math News: In 1675, Leibniz writes of his difficulties with the Product and Quotient rules for differentiation.  His original assumption for the product rule was d(u*v) = d(u)*d(v).  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: Henry Whitehead (1904-1960)

November 12:

Math News: In 1733, Abraham de Moivre presents the Normal Distribution curve to some friends.  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: Yutaka Taniyama (1927-1958)

Deaths: George Birkhoff (1884-1944)

November 14:

Math News: In 1716, Leibniz dies.  Sadly, the great thinker has only one mourner at his funeral, his secretary.  As an eyewitness describes the scene – “He was buried more like a robber than what he really was, the ornament of his century.”  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: R.L. Moore (1882-1974)

Deaths: Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716)

November 15:

Birthdays: Franz Adolph Taurinus (1794-1874)

Deaths: Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

November 16:

Birthdays: Eugenio Beltrami (1835-1900)

November 17:

Birthdays: Jean d’Alembert (1717-1783), August Möbius (1790-1868), Eugene Paul Wigner (1902-1995)

Deaths: Yutaka Taniyama (1927-1958)

November 18:

Deaths: Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

November 20:

Birthdays: Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), Benoit Mandelbrot (1924-2010)

Deaths: Christian Goldbach (1690-1764), Farkas Bolyai (1775-1856), Willem de Sitter (1872-1934)

November 21:

Math News: In 1811, Gauss writes to Bessel – “One should never forget that the functions, like all mathematical constructions, are only our own constructions.”  (See MathDL for details.)

November 22:

Deaths: Arthur Eddington (1882-1944)

November 23:

Math News: In 1654, Pascal has his religious epiphany, calling on him to give up his interest in mathematics to focus his time on religious contemplation.  In 1823, Janos Bolyai writes to his father concerning his discovery of non-Euclidean geometry – “I have made such wonderful discoveries that I am myself lost in astonishment.”  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: John Wallis (1616-1703)

November 24:

Math News: In 1759, Lagrange writes to Euler stating that he believes that he has developed the true metaphysics of the calculus.  In 1858, Dedekind provides the first correct definition of the continuity of the real line by using a method that will eventually bear his name, Dedekind cuts.  (See MathDL for details.)

November 25:

Math News: In 1731, Euler writes a letter in which he first uses “e” as the base for natural logarithms.  (See MathDL for details.)

Deaths: Edouard Goursat (1858-1936)

November 26:

Birthdays: Norbert Wiener (1894-1964)

November 27:

Deaths: Abraham de Moivre (1667-1754), Paul Tannery (1843-1904)

November 28:

Deaths: Enrico Fermi (1901-1954)

November 29:

Birthdays: Christian Doppler (1803-1853)

Deaths: Nicolaus(I) Bernoulli (1687-1759)

November 30:

Math News: In 1703, Newton becomes president of the Royal Society.  (See MathDL for details.)

Deaths: Bonaventura Cavalieri (1598-1647)

References: If you are interested in additional facts or birthdays, please visit the sites that I used to generate these lists:

• http://mathdl.maa.org – general mathematical facts
• http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk:80/~history/Day_files/Now.html – birthdays